March 6, 2004

My lab is moving into a new building soon. This building has been under construction for the past year or so, and our move date is in April. So, for the last year, I'd been looking at blueprints of the building, trying to think about what we would need and where we would need it, but I'd never actually been to the building until yesterday. Most of my labmates had already been there, but every time there was an expedition, something seemed to come up and I couldn't make it. So, I was very excited to finally see it.

The new building is kind of in the middle of nowhere, which I already knew. However, it is near the water, which makes for beautiful views, and it's on the warm and sunny side of town (microclimates are no joke in San Francisco).

When I walked in the building, the first thing I noticed was a Coke machine. An auspicious start! Our current building only has a Pepsi machine and I need my Diet Coke fix. But the second thing I noticed was the stairs.

I am afraid of heights. If I climb up a ladder more than a few feet I get vertigo and have to grab onto something to keep my balance. I've been this way all my life, and I think it's genetic, since my dad is as bad as I am or possibly worse, since his phobia extends to driving over high bridges. For some reason, bridges don't bother me if I'm inside the car. I just don't like the feeling of lots of open space between myself and the ground.

So this staircase...it's not in a stairwell, but is a freestanding structure in the lobby of the building that goes all the way up to the top floor, the fifth floor. Our lab is on the fourth floor.

As if this weren't bad enough, the sides of the staircase are not made of solid material, but rather of wire mesh with large gaps between the wire, which provide absolutely no visual protection from seeing exactly how high up you are.

And then the real kicker is that the lobby of each floor overlooks this atrium, and again, the only barrier between you and the floor, oh-so-many feet below, is a 3-foot high "barrier" made of the same wire mesh. The stairs I can live with, because there is an elevator, and I can just take that instead. But in order to get from the elevator to the lab, I have to walk past the atrium.

The one thing that made me feel a little better about all this is that I'm not the only person in the lab who feels this way. When we got off the elevator, everyone in the lab except myself and this other woman rushed over to the atrium and peered over the railing and oohed and aahed. Meanwhile, she and I plastered ourselves against the one solid wall in terror. My palms started to sweat and I was so dizzy that I had to put my hand on the wall to orient myself as I walked towards the lab. "Well, at least you guys will always know where to find me here," I told everyone. "Just follow the trail of sweat on the wall."

Anyway, I guess I'll just have to deal with it. Maybe it'll even give me added incentive to finish my Ph.D. sooner.

I recovered by having dinner and then cookies with Jen Fu and then going to the symphony. The symphony turned out to be one of the more amazing concerts I've been to--they did a fantastic job with Mahler's Fifth and got a standing ovation and when Jen leaned over afterwards and asked me if the symphony was always this good, I told her emphatically that it wasn't. Oh, and we also saw (local politician) Tom Ammiano there. He was ahead of us in line at the bar, and was wearing a pastel argyle sweater vest that made him look like an Easter egg.

We were supposed to go out for drinks with Shannon afterward, but after all that I was so tired, I just went right home and fell asleep. It was an eventful day.